More than Makeup: #TheSelfLoveSelfie

Hello my beautiful internet friends, I’m (finally) back!

Once again, thanks for your patience with the lack of blog posts recently. Life lately has been incredibly busy and overwhelming which you’ll know if read my Life Updates post. As if dealing with all of that plus finals wasn’t difficult enough, playing catch up after the fallout has been even harder. I know I sound like a broken record going on and on about how life moves fast, but I hope that by being open with my struggles I at least can help one person know that they are not alone in feeling engulfed by stress.

That being said, miracuously it is already May which also happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month: a concept created to normalize and remove the stigma about those living with mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. This year their campaign is centered around the hashtag #mentalillnessfeellike where you can share your own story, if you choose to do so, in order to make yourself and others feel like they are not alone in their feelings.

I bring up this campaign, because in a lot of ways it is intertwined with the campaign I launched myself. In case you hadn’t heard, I launched #TheSelfLoveSelfie where participants post pictures of themselves with only half of their makeup done and the other half of their face bare. I based this off of the NikkieTutorials Power of Makeup video and I hope that my campaign will also normalize the insecurities that we each have and how we can use makeup as a powerful tool, rather than a mask to hide behind. This campaign is a part of a school project where I take action on a women’s health issue. I wanted to use my influence as a blogger to shine some light on self-image.

Self-love and self-image go hand in hand. Without love for ourselves we can begin to develop an unhealthy perception of ourselves that can further lead to more serious mental and psychosis disorders such as depression, body dysmorphic disorder, and even eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

Through this campaign, I wanted to showcase that despite our self reservations, there is always room for more self-love, positivity, and growth that will help us overcome them. The purpose of this project it to promote self-love and empowerment for your whole self no matter if you wear makeup or not. It is about removing a stigma that those who wear makeup are always hiding behind insecurities, are inferior, vain, shallow, or dim. Likewise, those who choose not to wear makeup don’t disregard the way they present themselves to other people, or are lazy, or think they’re better than those who choose to wear it. It is about embracing everyone, whether or not they choose to wear makeup because neither is a “right” option—it is always a personal choice and preference. At the end of the day, we all should be wearing makeup or not wearing makeup for all the same reasons: for ourselves, for our own comfort, for our own versions of self-love and self-care, for our self-expression or self-identification, for our own motives.

It’s about reclaiming our own faces and bodies to do with what we please, and overcoming objectification, societal pressure, and stereotypes. The bottom line is that your self-love comes first, whatever that looks like for you, and we should all be willing to embrace that in one another instead of tearing one another down for wearing or not wearing makeup. Beauty is bigger than all of this. The most beautiful people are the ones with kind hearts, who are authentically true to themselves, and who spread love. These are all reasons and more to learn to love ourselves and encourage it in others. If not for our own sake, for the sake of bringing light and positivity to others.

In no way am I suggesting that this an easy task, though. Learning to love yourself is an ongoing process, and one that I admittedly struggle with myself. However, there is a great need for change in this community and I’ve taken it upon myself for the change to start with me. I hope by opening up about my own vulnerabilities this will help you with your own self-love journey. Here is my story:

Like I said before, self-love is not easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. However, it always gets a little easier with a little help from my friends (Beatles reference… again?). That being said, I want to thank the tribe of women who have had my back and have helped me by participating in this campaign. Thank you for bringing empowerment, light, positivity, and change to the beauty community! “Girls compete with one another. Women empower each other.”

I recently followed Jessica and saw that she was already planning on doing a Power of Makeup Video. I reached out to her and she graciously agreed to participate in my campaign as well! Here is a link to her video here. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story!

“I’ve had extremely low self-esteem for as long as I can remember. In my mind, my flaws always far outweighed any good qualities I possessed. I started wearing makeup at a very young age to try and hide my face as much as possible and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t still the case. My journey towards self-love has been, and will continue to be a long, hard struggle. But I now know that you can’t hate your way to self-love. And so, I’m taking baby steps in the right direction. I’m hopeful that someday I’ll be able to walk–scratch that, STRUT about confidently, be it with a cake face or a bare face!”

Bri and I have been mutual Instagram followers for awhile now, and she also was putting together a Power of Makeup video (here) that she combined with my campaign. Thanks again, doll!

“New video coming soon in collaboration with the beautiful@chroniclesofmegan ! This is part of her #theselfloveselfie which is all about embracing who you are and loving yourself whether you have a ton of makeup on or you are completely makeup free! Even with my cluster of acne and redness on my cheeks, my dark under eyes, my scar on my nose, and my caterpillar eyebrows, I still love myself and everything that I am! Take up the amazing challenge of doing up only half of your face 💕”

Liz is a blogger friend who has always been such a great support and role model to me! Even though she was sick, she took the time to participate. Thanks again for everything, Liz! Check out her yummy food & beauty blog here.

“My good friend@chroniclesofmegan asked me to post a half makeup selfie to help her with a school project on #confidence 💁 This was such a HUGE challenge for me because makeup is my crutch. My safety net. So here it is, split down the middle, no editing, no fancy camera or lighting, just my face before and after a “normal” makeup day.
Guess what? It’s empowering! Who else is willing to share a pic like this?
Thanks for including me, Megan! It was hard but it shouldn’t have to be!!!”

Kennedy has such a beautiful Instagram feed and when I followed her, I never thought she’d follow back let alone be one of my biggest supporters on Instagram. I look up to her so much and truly appreciate her taking the time to participate in my campaign. Thank you so much for sharing such an inspiring story!

“John Mayer once said “You gotta be able to explain things to yourself when the lights go off and you get in the bed. You gotta deal with you at the end of the day.” This has always resonated with me and is one of the many reasons why I think self love is so damn important. You are the only person who gets to spend every waking moment with you, growing and learning every ounce of who you are. You have to wake up and live with yourself every day so why would you want to spend your entire life hating yourself. I would much rather spend the rest of my life trying to find new ways to appreciate who I am and what I can do to make myself a person that I would want to love instead of ripping myself apart about the things I don’t like about myself.

The beautiful @chroniclesofmegan asked me to participate in her#TheSelfLoveSelfie challenge and to post a photo of me with half my makeup done and half of my bare face and to explain what self love means to me. I definitely challenge all of you to do the same if you’re comfortable so those who don’t have self love or see themselves without makeup and not pretty or not good enough to know that we all have flaws and that’s okay, it’s what makes us who we are.”

Rachael is a lovely blogging friend from Australia who I’ve collaborated with before. You can check out her guest post here, and follow her blog here. Thanks for participating, your gif was so creative!

Christina is one of my first blogger friends. She is truly genuine and has encouraged me so much in growing my blog. She is such a huge inspiration to me! Thank you for being a part of this and always being there, Christina! You can find her fabulous blog here.

“My blogging friend @chroniclesofmegan asked me to participate in her #theselfloveselfie and I must admit I love the idea! Every girl should be able to love themselves with or without makeup💄 Thanks Megan for supporting self love💋”

Much thanks again to all of the wonderful bloggers and Instagrammers who were a part of this project! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all of your contributions!

This post is the first in a series I want to start here on my blog called “More than Makeup”. As I’ve said before, I am a multifaceted person and I am more than the one side of the screen that my followers get to see. What you don’t always see on the other end of the screen is my love for yoga, how I geek out over finding the perfect font (#graphicdesignnerd), the time I spend with my family, friends, and dog, my quest to eat only delicious food, and my never ending attempt to get through my Netflix queue. Most prominently, though, you won’t always see my fight for social justice and my work to create equity for women. I am a firm believer in women helping other women; if not your fellow sister, who is looking out for you?

I’ve always said that this is more than just a “beauty”blog. “Beauty” is not just skin deep; it is more than all of the products I choose to show here, the perfect winged liner, or some golden glowing highlight. It’s “More than Makeup”. Beauty is self-love, love for others, love for life, and love for something bigger than yourself. I hope that by starting this series I can continue the work that I have started with #TheSelfLoveSelfie campaign and I hope that you continue to join me.

Thank you again for your patience and I hope that this week’s post gave you something to think about. If you want to check out some more articles and posts I’ve made about Self-Love, and Reclaiming beauty you can check out these pieces: For the Love of Makeup, Exploring Beauty Series, My Makeup Journey. This post is an amalgam of some of the other work I have written is these previous articles.

Ah megan I loved this post! I actually didn’t know it was mental health awareness month, I think that is a HUGE thing so thanks for pointing that out to me. You are one of the most kindhearted person I’ve ever met! Thank you for being one of my favorite blogging friend & inspiring others to love themselves! I love this cause and so glad I got to participate!

Thank you so much Christina for helping me out & leaving such kind words for me every time you comment… it always makes me smile 🙂 Of course! I’m so glad to have been able to share all of this with you & everyone else. I’m so grateful that blogging has introduced me to you, you are literally my blogging #goals lol! You’re such a successful blogger & I hope someday to have a great community like yours! Thanks again ♥︎

This post and your Youtube video carry such a powerful message for all women out there to be self confident and love themselves for the way they are. I don’t usually wear much makeup as I am not very good with it, haha…. otherwise I think i would join you in this campaign… thank you for spreading so much positivity around!

Thank you so much! Haha that’s okay, the whole point is to love your self with and without makeup and at any skill level, but even if you don’t want to participate please feel free to share with other to get the word out! Thanks for stopping by & leaving such a sweet comment 🙂

I love the message you are sending to women and girls. As a mom to two daughters I want them to learn that beauty lies within. But, I also want them to feel confident and be able to express themselves through beauty and make up products because even as young girls they find them entertaining. Love that you talk about the choice. Love yourself with AND without your make up!

Thank you so much! I hope your daughters will grow up in world where this stigma is gone altogether and where they can freely love & express themselves. You’re a great mama for teaching these things to them. Thank you for your sweet comment! 💕

Hi that was a great read. I heard of a story recently about a youtube/instergrammer who was bullied online for daring to post picture without make-up as all her follower was telling her how wonderful she looked with make-up. A big make-up brand heard about being bullied and made her spoke person for baring ‘naked (no makeup) skin. I thought that was a great story. xx